Gratuitous Payment Options: Nomads DLC

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Cliffski really does have a knack at this. He’s just released his latest bit of Gratuitous Space Battles DLC, introducing the Nomads, a whole new race with ships, weapons and similar. Oldest race in the galaxy, according to the GSB fiction. But the trick is the spin he’s given to this. There’s two editions of the DLC you can buy. One is $5.99, the other is $2.99. There’s no difference between ’em. It’s simply an experiment, to try and cater for the people who say they can’t afford that amount of money. Look at your life, decide what you can afford, then pay it. He’s also keeping a running tally of the results. Currently, 28 $5.99 editions and 10 $2.99 editions. And if you’ve never played GSB, you can try the demo. Oh – the new trailer follows.

Same, really. I liked GSB some (the demo, that is) but not sufficiently to justify the purchase. Although I may be odd in that it’s not necessarily the amount of money, but rather the usage/enjoyment I get out of the game which are the primary factors in whether I purchase a game. Those, and how many games I have on my plate.

There was a package on Steam with all the DLC (except this new one) a little while ago. Personally I’m waiting until the meta-campaign comes out before I buy another GSB expansion– simply put, I was never all that interested in new races, the races by necessity of balance can’t really play all that differently after all. I want a new or enhanced playing experience, not just a bunch of new gfx (hulls, reskinned modules) and a couple new components.

you can mix and match however you want. The only problem is that my installer assumes its the positech version, so you have to correct them and browse to where steam (or whoever else) has instaleld the game.
Other than that, it should work fine.

Wow, what can I say about this … As an experiment, the results will be interesting but, sadly enough, completely useless. Such a system would only work now because (a) you make it personal (b) you write a big post explaining it’s an experiment (c) it’s an original approach. If EA and Ubisoft did it for all their games, with no long post preceding the “buy” buttons, the results would be VERY heavily slanted in favour of the discounted version. Just like the “pay what you want” system, its power comes from how unique the system was. Every try to use the same system seems to have been slightly less effective.

Damn you, Cliffski. You are annoying me with your reasonableness. It is a word, I just decided.

The only thing stopping me from buying (probably the full price version of) this is the fact that I haven’t, and in fact can’t, play GSB yet due to technical issues (which are of my making, not GSB’s, so relax). So, basically I don’t know whether or not I like it enough.

Right now, I’d be plumping for the pricier version, if at all, because I can afford it. A year or two ago, it’d have been the discount version though, so I respect this move a great deal, and hope it works out well both for you and those of us who are in a tight financial spot.

Are we actually pulling this 10,000 from somewhere, or just an assumption? This is an indie release, and an expansion pack, so I don’t think that many people even register its existence.

I for one am not buying it, but I’m not the least bit tempted to pirate it either. I still haven’t played most of the races I got in that sale on Steam. It’s still going to be the same game, and I haven’t had the time to play what I’ve got let alone want more.

I’m going to be interested when the campaign comes out and makes a substantive change to the way it plays.

You can counter that. Swarms of fast frigates with short-range weapons (which pack a punch far above their weight). Said swarms are themselves countered by a spread-out fleet that causes them to lose cohesion and density, but against a densed packed triangle that’s trapped against one corner of the map they’re devastating. As they come in, the fire will be focused on the lead ships, which are actually pretty hard to hit with long-range weapons due to their speed– a significant number may still die, but it only takes a few fast firing frigates to ruin a cruiser’s day.

It could be seen as a weakness that you pretty much have to redesign your fleet every time to face non-traditional fleets and tactics, but that I believe is a good pattern for a game. It’s almost like a reverse tower defense, you see a fleet (a defensive matrix) and you must determine what attack is going to break it. I know GSB was referred to as a tower defense game before it even came out, but to me it seems like the player is the attacker most of the time, and the defender only when they send out a Challenge fleet.